Skeete slain for soldier’s murder

Skeete, 30, Joel Tash, 22, and Jamaican Tremin Thomas, 25, were shot dead at Desperlie Crescent, Laventille.

Skeete was a suspect in the murder of Kayode Thomas, a Lance Corporal in the TT Regiment who was ambushed in his car in Laventille on June 29.

Relatives yesterday said Skeete surrendered himself to police, along with his lawyer, two months ago however officers did not question him.

But, he was later targeted by members of the Regiment, the family alleged.

“Well everybody knows he was wanted in connection with the murder of Kayode Thomas. When he gave up himself with his lawyer at the station they told him they didn’t want him; he wasn’t wanted by the police and they said that the soldiers cannot arrest him,” a relative, who requested anonymity, told reporters at the Forensic Science Centre, St James where the autopsies for the three men were done.

“The other day men were liming by the Crescent, and a jeep passed with two police and two soldiers, and they stopped and looked at Skeete. Well the police and them know him so I told him, ‘they didn’t stop to ask you anything, they stop to show them soldiers and them you are Dillon Skeete, you is Bandy. Is better you move from this frontline.’ And that is how he get up and move... He told me, ‘You see just how they approach me is just how they approached ‘Limit’. You remember how he was here liming, well I’m next.’ That was last week Saturday,” a relative said.

“Limit” 19-year-old Kishawn Daniel, was killed by police on June 20, in the same area.

Skeete’s family do not believe the police had any role in his murder saying he had cooperated with officers.

“We know it isn’t police. If police want him they will come by his house and say ‘Ay Bandy,’ like they are his friends, and he will come out. Is the soldiers,” the relative said.

Skeete’s mother Tleta was inconsolable after his autopsy and kept crying out, “That’s not my son, that’s not my son.”

Tremin, who was friends with Skeete, was said to be an innocent by-stander.

“He came to film a video by them and this was his payment, he ended up dead,” Skeete’s relative insisted.

Tremin was in Trinidad filming a movie and there were plans to submit it to the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

Tremin was working with Louie Rankin, a Jamaican reggae artiste and actor, also known as Teddy Brukshut, who is most famous for his roles in the urban thriller Belly and the Jamaican crime film Shottas. The movie was being filmed in several areas including Toronto, Jamaica and Trinidad.

According to various social media networks, Rankin left Trinidad to return home on Thursday, hours before the fatal shootings.

Tash’s family distanced themselves from the claims that members of the Regiment killed their son. His father Noel said the 22-year-old was not connected with any gang member, and was aspiring to join the police force.

“Joel applied to be an SRP, but he got sick with a stomach infection, and had to stay home for a week. It was a minor infection, but because he had to stay in the hospital for a week, the trainers told him he would have to start the programme over,” Noel said. “He had no priors, or any run-ins with the law. Some people saying is police that kill him, some people say is army, I don’t know; all I know is I got a call, minutes to twelve (Thursday), saying that my son was shot.”

Autopsy reports confirmed the three men died from multiple gunshot wounds.

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